Apple is looking to diversify its presence in the Asian supply chain, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Instead of partnering with Foxconn to make the rumored budget iPhone, Apple has reportedly commissioned Pegatron, a rival factory, to build the device.
Foxconn has been making the majority of Apple’s products for years, but under the leadership of Tim Cook, the umbilical cord is being cut.
During his appearance before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that Apple’s “Made-in-USA” Macs will be manufactured in Texas. The Cupertino company announced its plans to produce one of its Mac lines on U.S. soil last December, but until now, it was unclear where the process would take place.
Apple doesn’t like OLED displays. Across the board, Apple uses LCD IPS displays in its devices, which have better color accuracy than OLED. Theoretically, though, OLED is better than LCD when it comes to power consumption, though… which is why a new report is floating the possibility that Apple might switch to OLED for the iWatch… and that Foxconn is already building test runs.
Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, has long been Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner, with around 60-70% of its revenue coming from the Cupertino company. But local rival Pegatron is hoping to change that.
By offering Apple more competitive prices and sacrificing its profit margins, Pegatron appears to be securing iPhone and iPad assembly orders that would have normally gone straight to Foxconn.
Foxconn has been forced to make preparations for life after Apple following reduced demand for the iPhone and other iOS devices which has caused the company’s revenue to nosedive, The New York Times reports.
The manufacturer has been doing well off the back of Apple’s hugely successful devices in recent years, which have been contributing at least 40% of its revenue, according to analyst estimates. But after suffering a 19.2% drop in revenue during the first quarter of the year, thanks to declining iPhone and iPad orders, Foxconn is now looking at ways in which it can be less reliant on Apple.
Foxconn is notorious for its tough working conditions and labor practices, but the company has started relaxing on some of its strict factory rules after two recent suicides occurred at its Zhengzhou factory last month.
Starting now, Foxconn has decided it will stop forcing workers from fraternizing with one another during work hours. Foxconn’s factories have used a “mute mode” policy with workers that prohibits any conversation that is not relevant to their jobs while in the workshop, but the iPhone-maker has decided it’s probably good for workers’ health to be able to talk to each other.
Apple’s quarterly profit probably fell for the first time in over a decade, thanks to new products with lower profit margins and a slowing demand for the iPhone, Bloomberg reports. Fourteen analysts have reduced their estimates for Apple in recent weeks, and on Friday, the Cupertino company’s share price fell below $400 for the first time since December 2011.
A Chinese paper is reporting that Apple and Foxconn may have had a staggering setback in the production of the iPhone, with up to eight million iPhones returned to Foxconn because they didn’t meet Apple’s standards.
The New York Times has won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for “Explanatory Reporting” for its nine-part iEconomy series into Apple’s business practices and the working conditions inside Foxconn’s Chinese factories.
The Times was praised for its “penetrating look into business practices by Apple and other technology companies that illustrates the darker side of a changing global economy for workers and consumers.”
Foxconn has begun taking on new workers as it prepares to begin production of Apple’s next iPhone, according to two seperate reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.
The company has added to its numbers at an iPhone plant in Zhengzhou, eastern China, ending a freeze on recruitment that was implemented back in February. The new workers will reportedly assemble the upcoming “iPhone 5S,” as well as existing models that Apple has requested to boost capacity, a supply chain source said.
Foxconn sales declined 19% during the first quarter of 2013, and “disappointing” demand for Apple’s iPhone is getting the blame, Reuters reports. Between January and March, the company’s sales totaled NT$808.97 billion ($26.96 billion), down from NT$988.24 billion ($32.99 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2012, and NT$1 trillion ($33.38 billion) a year ago.
Apple and Foxconn’s jumper problem might not be a thing of the past after all, as reports over the weekend broke that two workers have jumped from the roof of Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory on Friday in reaction to job cuts, lowered wages and the end of free amenities at the world’s largest gadget manufacturer.
A “confidential presentation” that outlines the upcoming product plans for a manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China, suggests the iPhone 5S could launch in June this year. Most rumors have suggested the device wouldn’t arrive until this fall, around 12 months after the iPhone 5, but an accessory manufacturer with direct links to Foxconn is confident it’ll be here much earlier.
Apple is gearing up to send its much-anticipated “iTV” into mass production during the second half of this year, according to sources in the Cupertino company’s supply chain, who have been speaking to DigiTimes. The set will reportedly boast a 4K “Ultra HD” display with a 3840×2160 resolution, and it’ll be controlled by voice and motion.
As Apple has become more successful over the last few years, Hon Hai Precision Industry’s (Foxconn) financial fortunes have been more tightly bound to Apple’s than ever before.
If things are going well for Foxconn, then Apple’s probably doing pretty well too, so investors were happy to hear that Foxconn just posted its most profitable quarter ever thanks to improved production efficiency of the iPad and iPhone 5.
Apple bans apps from the App Store all the time, for a variety of reasons. Most of the time, it’s because they think the app is pornographic, even if it totally isn’t, although occasionally, it’s because developers have hidden some functionality in an app that violates Apple’s EULA.
One thing we’re not used to seeing Apple ban apps for, though, is the mere fact that the app’s subject matter has made Cupertino uncomfortable… but that is seemingly what happened with Sweatshop HD, a game created by a BAFTA-winning studio that aims to raise awareness about where our products come from.
Apple’s suppliers are to begin shipping components for the next-generation iPhone by the end of May, ready for the handset’s launch during the third-quarter of 2013, according to sources in the supply chain. As suspected, the device won’t be a major upgrade, the sources claim, but rather a “slightly enhanced” version of the iPhone 5 that’s likely to be called the iPhone 5S.
Last month we heard that even though Apple just posted a record breaking quarter, sales of the iPad were lower than internal expectations.
Backing up claims that Apple is having a down month, Topeka Capital says that they’ve been monitoring Apple’s suppliers and February was a very bad month for companies that help make Apple products.
Last year, Apple launched its Labor and Human Rights page to give some transparency to the human rights controversy’s it’s been having with supply chain workers. Along with numerous explanations on what Apple is doing to make sure its supply chain workers are treated fairly, the company releases the percentage of supplier work-hour compliance every month.
For the first time since Apple started tracking its supplier work-hour compliance metric, they just hit 99% compliance in January 2013.
Sharp has this morning announced a ¥10.4 billion ($112 million) investment from Samsung that will provide the latter with a 3% stake in the company. It makes Samsung the biggest individual shareholder in the Japanese display maker, and secures its access to Sharp’s LCD panel supplies.
The investment comes at a time when Sharp has been struggling. The company received a $4.4 billion bailout from the banks in October 2012, and its iPad display orders from Apple were recently cut as consumer demand shifted to the smaller iPad mini, which Sharp is not involved with.
Rumors surrounding the iPhone 5S have started to pick up steam in recent weeks, and now a report from overseas claims that Foxconn has started ramping up production for the new device.
There have been a lot of theories floated for why Foxconn froze new hires earlier this month. Early rumors suggested that iPhone 5 production had slowed, while later reports said that Apple’s new measures to improve working conditions had caused fewer workers than usual to abandon their posts over Chinese New Year.
Now there’s a new theory: Foxconn’s getting out of China, at least in part.
The success of the iPhone and iPad was supposed to do great things for Sharp. As Apple’s profits have gone up, Sharp has seen an increased amount of orders from Cupertino as Apple tries to distance itself from buying supplies from Samsung.
Even though Sharp supplies Apple with displays for the iPad and iPhone, their stock price has been falling lately, and its investment deal with Foxconn might be in jeopardy.
Apple stock plummeted recently after a rumor went around that Foxconn had instituted a hiring freeze based upon a slowdown in iPhone 5 production. Foxconn quickly and emphatically deniedthat the freeze had anything to do with the iPhone 5… but what was the cause of the hiring freeze, then?
Here’s an interesting theory: Foxconn had to freeze hirings this year because, under pressure from Apple, they are treating employees so much more nicely that workers are no longer abandoning their jobs in droves after Chinese New Year.
Although these leaked images should be taken with a huge grain of salt, multiple photos purporting to be the rear aluminum shell of the second-generation iPad mini have leaked online, showing the next mini to be slightly thicker than the existing model… highly suggestive of the next iPad mini having a Retina display.